Different Directions
by Dreaming of Everything
Summary: It had started as an experiment: Starscream needed a human subject to observe and then manipulate. Somehow, things went wrong. Hope thought of herself as average until she was nearly killed, twice. Then things got weird. Friendship? Impossible, but maybe.
1. Leaning Away 1

**Leaning Away**  
Part 1

Written by Dreaming of Everything for Dayari, betaed by mmouse15!

* * *

Starscream found himself idly amused by the irrational, petty histrionics of the human female he was observing. The best part was that it was all, in the end, so futile. Their lives were the barest blink of an eye, and they seemed to think they mattered so _much_, every single one of them, six billion on the planet—it was perfect and unintentional satire, an entire species that lived (and died) like a parody.

"Cheating piece of _scum!_" shrieked the human. "'It's not you, it's me'—hah! 'I met her at the dance,' he's even a bad _liar!_ He didn't go to this year's Tolo (1), he said he wasn't going to...be able...to make it—oh, fucking _hell. _He was lying then, too, _wasn't_ he. Oh, I—argh! I _hate this!_ I hope he gets everything he deserves...

"Oh, _damn_, I'm crying. Again. It figures he's such a jerk, he dumps me right before our camping trip... My camping trip, now, I guess. And I guess I won't need _this_ anymore." Moodily, the human tossed something away from her. Zooming in on it quickly showed it to be a condom: interesting. It was a pity he'd missed the chance to observe reproductive behavior—it was _fascinating_ how they would mate with no intention of producing young. It was almost Cybertronian, in a way... "And it was going to be our first time, too… Oh, damn it all, I'm just going to decide to die a virgin here and now. That way we won't have to go through all _this_ again! One year and—two months, _wasted_ on that—that—"

Words seemed to fail the simple creature: she shouted instead, out of sheer frustration, tears starting to roll down her face.

After a while, still leaking (odd, that they had an emotional reaction tied in with a fairly reasonable biological function) she got up and wandered off. Starscream decided he was more likely to stay unobserved if he stayed still. At this point he'd been watching the female for a minimal period of time, and he wouldn't want to have to go find another subject. Furthermore, her termination—and that would be the best solution if he was caught—would only arouse suspicions.

* * *

Starscream decided to use the free time to alter her cell phone: it was convenient that she'd left it. And yes, it was very easy indeed to make a few modifications, all little things she would never notice, so that it would also log and then send copies of all her conversations and... "texts" to him, for perusal over time. It would help increase the range of his data, exponentially so, even, since it was so hard to observe her at any useful distance inside the city. He stuck in a small camera, as well: it would drain the camera's battery slightly faster, and the odds were good that he couldn't come up with much of interest, but that was science, and you never knew. It was unlikely the human would notice anything amiss.

It was better to collect useless data than to risk losing something potentially helpful.

After sixteen hours had passed, he was starting to wonder what he'd missed. If it was something like an example of the dominant species being attacked by one of their natural predators—a fascinating thing, and so _deliciously_ ironic, in a pathetic, human way—he was going to be terribly disappointed. It didn't happen often, according to the statistics, and while an attack wouldn't have been hard for him to set it up, he couldn't guarantee that the situation would be entirely free of his influences. The last thing he wanted was flawed data.

But it was an easy matter to find the thing—the girl he was watching. He shifted into his alt form and took to the skies.

* * *

Yes, there she was, still alive. That was both positive and negative; mostly, it was neutral. Observation was what he was there for, whatever he ended up observing.

Her condition was deteriorating, however. Her leg was badly broken, bone sticking through the skin and, as he knew, she didn't have her cell phone—not that it would help her now, if she did. She was hardly lucid, so there was no guarantee that she'd think to call.

"Don't want to die," the girl muttered. She tried to pull herself to her feet but fell back, in agony. Humans had such a low pain tolerance. It was pathetic. And they clung so _hard_ to their worthless lives. "I didn't say goodbye to Mom, Dad…"

It really would be a bother to find a new research subject. If he kept on having to switch every three months, he'd _never_ get an accurate range of data.

Mind made up, he placed an anonymous call to the local police department, giving them the details of the incident. It would save him a lot of further hassle, and it would be interesting to watch the human's continued and pathetic emotional struggle.

He transformed and flew off. The organic never knew he was there.

Half an hour after he'd left, emergency rescue arrived.

She would live, unknowing.

* * *

Human lives were astonishingly boring.

That was the main conclusion that six months of research had produced. Their petty dramas and troubles, the ultimate futility of whatever they ended up doing—it was all highly uninteresting. He'd heard about the dissolution of his research subject's previous sexual relationship on a regular basis for over two Earth months. He _still_ hadn't heard the end of all the drama attached to the human's progenitors ending their relationship, their announcement to their offspring taking place a month ago, and _that_ shouldn't have been a surprise, unless you were incredibly dense and unobservant. Or human.

Certainly it wouldn't have been a surprise to anyone paying even the _slightest _amount of attention. The female of the two hadn't actually committed extramarital sexual acts, but she'd come close. The male had been removed and distant, both physically and emotionally, using his work as an excuse. They'd fought regularly.

Really, the whole matter—reproduction—seemed to be something of an obsession for the species as a whole, which was a potentially helpful observation, if an uninteresting one. He couldn't think of any direct applications for that conclusion at the moment, but almost anything could be used as a weakness to be exploited, and you never knew when some little morsel of knowledge like that would come in handy.

Sex. All they seemed to think about was reproduction, or at least the act of mating. He'd done the research, so he knew that the usual Decepticon views towards organics and sexual activities had to be wrong: purely recreational sex probably wasn't as futile as it seemed. True, it defied the original purpose of the action, and it was a waste of energy, but it wasn't like Decepticons—and, more commonly, Autobots—didn't have possibly parallel actions. Starscream himself didn't take part in any of that: it was a waste of energy, an exploitable weakness and really not the circuit-blowing experience all his comrades seemed to think it was. His theory was that there were a few 'Cons who actually felt it to that extent, and the rest was hyperbole and living up to the expectation. It wasn't a testable theory, though, as it touched on the inherent flaw of

Still, the human preoccupation couldn't be _entirely_ because of the evolutionary drive. Certainly, research he'd done online showed that there were large variances between cultures. That was logical, to a certain extent (Transformers also had cultural differences: Seekers were unique in that they formed trines; Autobots and Decepticons were impossible to confuse) but not when you considered that most 'cultural' differences between 'cultural' groups among the Transformers were because of literal physical, measurable differences: size, function, programming. Fliers didn't like being underground. Gestalts were the only ones who liked physical touch. Casettes were dependent.

...Six months, though, and the human had failed to be interesting. She cried a lot. She seemed to be stressed, but only because of petty, infinitesimal matters, and she never managed to do much to effectively change the situation, didn't even try much. Certainly it was possible for her to do _more_. Economic and educational troubles—such a pitiably barbaric culture. There'd been a certain amount of talk of his research subject moving to a different state. That would be interesting, to see it integrate into a new society, even one that was similar to its old one.

Social interactions remained..._con__fusing_. Yes, they definitely required more research. Again, online data collection had helped: it seemed to indicate that social standards and norms, as well as non-verbal means of communication, were remarkably complex—they were actually transmitting not insignificant amounts of data. Starscream could admit that, only slightly grudgingly. He would also be the first to point out that it was an ineffectual, error-ridden system with a highly non-optimal design, too, but considering the design process (specifically, that there hadn't been one), it was almost miraculous. And such an inferior structure, too...

All his research seemed to indicate that many humans, especially the younger ones, were deliciously over-trusting and optimistic. _That_ was definitely useful.

* * *

Hope was going camping again. Just for three days, but that was going to be enough. She'd talk her parents up to giving her more time later on.

She just couldn't stay in the house another second. It had been a month since her father had announced he was moving out, and two weeks since he actually had—he'd found a new apartment.

Her mother was alternating between unintentional bouts of crying and bouts of yelling, and wandering around looking lost when she wasn't doing one or the other of those. Her younger sister was throwing screaming fits, no matter what Mom was doing. Her father was awkward and uncomfortable when he talked to them, and trying too hard to pretend everything was still just the same. He wouldn't meet their eyes. Hope just wanted to disappear and have some place she could cry in peace.

So she was going camping, where she wouldn't have to ignore her sister Faith's constant goading—what _was _it with her mother and virtue names?—or fight the temptation to scream at her mom, or try to talk to her father when he was alternating between pretending nothing had changed and trying to 'talk to her' about said changes.

She'd barely been able to talk her parents into letting her go out on her own again. She'd convinced them by promising to carry her cell phone everywhere she went, no matter _what_. That had been what had gotten her in trouble, last time—not the fall, but not having any way to get in touch with somebody else. She'd been lucky somebody had called the emergency line for her...

* * *

It was an interesting idea.

Starscream himself had absolutely no interest in associating with any of the barely-sentient wads of carbon that masqueraded as the dominant species of the planet (which they clearly weren't, now that the Decepticons had arrived) but they had..._potential_.

Largely as bargaining chips.

The Autobots clearly loved the things. It made an _excellent_ weakness for him to capitalize on. There were the obvious ways—threatening to go after their settlements, taking hostages—but he could also see a few subtler applications.

And all that most of his plans would require was a human he could easily manipulate.

The only downside was that the manipulation was something he needed to undertake himself. He certainly wouldn't trust any of the Decepticon agents on Earth with the task: Barricade wasn't capable of being charming, even to other _Decepticons_, and Scorponok—that defied rational thought. He was barely a step up from a drone and couldn't even speak decent Cybertronian.

That left Starscream himself, who didn't want to wait for other Decepticons to arrive—the word had gone out, but it could be years before anyone answered, let alone someone who could do the job. Thundercracker, maybe—although he'd shown unnerving tendencies to form sympathetic attachments to non-Transformer species, so perhaps not. Soundwave was reliable, but beyond uncharismatic. Really, most Decepticons were surprisingly lousy at such _simple_ deceptions.

At least Starscream already had a subject picked out. His little research project had been _surprisingly_ helpful. After all, who better to manipulate than someone who you already knew, intimately, but had no idea that you knew?

And her trips alone in to the mountains had continued: the perfect opportunity for Starscream to introduce himself. Or rather, to introduce a carefully designed false persona he could use to befriend her—

* * *

It was the third and final day of her camping trip and, like all the other mornings so far, Hope had hiked out to a meadow she'd found; the first morning, she'd seen deer, and she was hoping to see them again.

At first, she didn't realize what she was looking at. She had to blink, twice, for the shapeless gray to resolve itself into a complicated metal tangle. She had to back up to come to a full understanding.

Robot. There was a giant robot in the field. It was looking at her. Hope's legs gave out: she collapsed.

"What?" she said, irrationally, not sure why. Her voice sounded like it belonged to someone else, echoing strangely in her ears.

And then she fainted.

* * *

"Are you damaged, human?" the robot said when her eyes fluttered open again. –It was leaning over her. It's voice was oddly—_something_. Some weird tone, or something like that...even beyond the way it was kind of shrieky. Mostly, it's tone was neutral, but—

"Uh?" she said. She couldn't think—this was all too crazy—

"I'm sorry I surprised you." She mostly missed the grudging way he said that; she didn't hear the seething disgust and resentment at all. Of course, Starscream was very good at keeping that sort of thing hidden.

"It—you—_what?_"

"I wasn't expecting any humans in such a remote location. –My name is Starscream. I'm a Decepticon, an alien, to you, from the planet Cybertron."

"I've gone crazy," Hope breathed, scrambling into a sitting position. "I've started hallucinating—oh, fuck, I'm alone in the middle of a forest and I think I'm talking to a giant alien robot who's talking back—oh, _shit_—"

She started laughing, hysterical.

"I am _not_ a figment of your imagination," Starscream said flatly, some of the venom he was feeling leaking into the statement. Slag: he had to remember _why_ he was doing this—

"Oh. I'm sorry, then," Hope said, somewhat dizzily. "—I can't believe this..."

"I guess it could be hard," Starscream allowed. _If you're a simplistic waste of energy._ That was a thought. Maybe it could be possible to harvest their energy output into some sort of generator?

"Oh, my God—your, your name is Starscream? –I— Oh my _God_."

"Yes," he said, needlessly. This hadn't been one of his better ideas. Of course, it wasn't too late to just terminate the creature and leave its body somewhere that would make it look like an accident...

"—It's nice to meet you?" she offered, sounding—and feeling—like a drowning woman clinging to a splintered piece of wood. At least she had manners and routine social greetings to fall back on. "—Um. Yes. It's nice to meet you."

"The honor's mine," Starscream said, with gravity. Inside, he was masking a full smirk: he had her. All he needed now was for her to calm down and a little more time to cement her connection to him.

"Oh," she said, faintly. "...Why are you here?"

"My planet was destroyed in a catastrophic civil war," he said solemnly. It was better to stick with something closer to the truth—not because it made the lie easier (a _human_ was never going to catch him out) but because it would make his version more believable if she ever ended up interacting with the Autobots. "The Allspark, the sacred source of our—you would probably call them souls—was lost. We tracked it to earth, where it was destroyed in battle. I have no reason to return to my war-torn, destroyed home planet, so I stayed here."

Some of her panic seemed to be fading. "But how—how did you stay hidden?"

"Oh, that," Starscream said, and he smiled, almost smirked. He was deeply gratified by the yelp of fear and surprise as he activated his transformation sequence. The only downside was that he wasn't able to get a good look at the expression on her face.

There were two minutes and seventeen seconds of silence. Starscream waited through it, impatiently.

"—Oh my God," Hope breathed, _again_, taking one, then two steps forward. "That's incredible! How—how does that _work?_"

"Transformation technology," he replied, dismissively. He had better things to do than explain sophisticated Cybertronian tech to juvenile specimens of an underdeveloped backwater species. "It's a little complicated."

"It'd have to be...! Does—does it _hurt?_"

"What? No." The idea was _ridiculous_.

"Oh. –Sorry."

Slag. He was letting his true opinions color his voice again. He needed to stop doing that. Not that it seemed to be having any dramatic effect—she didn't seem at all suspicious. That could change, though. He was doubtless overestimating the thing, but that was infinitely preferable to underestimation.

"It's nothing—I understand that this must be a huge shock for you." Really, he should apologize for startling her, but he couldn't bring himself to do that, even for the sake of his act. It was an _organic_. A human—arguably an even worse epithet.

"I can't believe it," Hope breathed, again.

"And what's your designation—or name?" Starscream asked, after a reasonably polite span of time. If he didn't get an excuse to use her name—he already knew it, but she didn't know that—he was going to end up accidentally calling her a gibbering carbonmonkey, or something to that effect.

"Hope," she said, still staring at him, eyes wide. "Hope Lans. –Uhm. What are you doing here?"

"It's a pretty area," he said. Decepticon dignity made him tack on an addendum. "Even if it's not Cybertron." That was still an utter lie—the place was disgustingly organic. It wasn't much even compared to the other organic-populated planets he'd been forced to visit. Especially not the wilder areas on Earth: the cities were marginally better. _Marginally_.

"It is," she said, smiling softly, tension draining away, _visibly_. Starscream bit back a laugh: this was going to be pathetically easy.

* * *

"You're going hiking _again?_" her mother said, letting the knife she'd been washing fall back into the sink. "What do you _do_ up there, Hope?"

"It's pretty," she replied, shrugging. "It lets me—get away from it all. I'm thinking of taking up birdwatching?"

Her mother sighed. "I just don't get it. Call your Aunt Charity, though, she's always been into the whole nature thing. She'll be ecstatic."

"Maybe," Hope said evasively, and she snagged her daypack and beat a hasty retreat for her car.

She felt bad, lying to her mom, she really did. But the robot—Starscream—was hard to explain, and he'd asked her not to tell...

It was all incredible. It felt like her boring life had turned into a movie, all of a sudden! She was only just, and only almost, starting to believe it was all real, a week later.

And really, she hadn't told her mom a _complete_ lie. This was the first time she was heading up into the mountains for any reason other than the ones she'd given. –Well, she really wasn't interested in the birds. She agreed with her mother there: they were all kind of the same and essentially boring. Well, they could be nice to sit and watch and listen to, but she didn't have any burning desire to track them down and keep lists of what she'd seen and talk all about it endlessly to everyone, even people who didn't really care, like Aunt Charity.

...She still couldn't get over the fact that there would be a giant robot, an _alien_ one, waiting to talk to her! She was so lucky, to have accidentally run into him... He'd said he hadn't meant to reveal himself, but he was glad to have someone to talk to.

Hope felt kind of guilty about how that made her feel. Really, she was very ordinary, so to have someone—let alone someone like Starscream!—say that about her made her feel very happy and kind of embarrassed and all pleased and trembly inside. Because it was just her! It was just coincidence that she was the one, but he was happy it was her. Even though she was so ordinary, so absolutely average...

But, yes, that wasn't a good way to feel, because it _was_ coincidence and anyone else would have worked just as well and Starscream deserved to meet other people, _to have met_ someone more interesting, a better conversationalist at least, or something like that. But the guilt wasn't enough to make her stop feeling the way she did altogether.

She didn't have much further to go, now. –What if someone else was in the field? Would he be there too? He'd said he was trying to stay hidden—to start with, he was worried he'd be studied, denied his freedom, if he was publicly known. That would have to be awful—Hope shuddered at the thought. He was definitely a living, emotional being with free will, but he wouldn't have any rights under UN laws, because they were for _humans_. Forget about being treated like a citizen.

She could just wait if he wasn't there and someone else was. She'd brought a book, after all. She still had some reading to do. And that way she wouldn't be lying to her mom as badly, when she asked her what she'd done all day. –No, no, she needed to stop justifying herself, that was even worse than telling the lie in the first place, in a way.

Hope's nerves were mounting as she started the hike, and they grew as she drew nearer and nearer the clearing. She'd gotten a text message from him, or she'd thought she had, but what if it turned out that she _was_ hallucinating?

Thirty seconds from the clearing, nearing the very edge of the woods, Hope paused, a thought slamming into her hard enough to make her stop still.

What if he wasn't the benevolent, supportive and kind person he was pretending to be?

...But no. That was ridiculous. He'd been very nice: she hadn't gotten any sense at all of something like that from him, and she was pretty good at picking up on that sort of thing. And what reason would an _evil_ giant alien robot have to befriend a human like her?

Hope started walking again, determinedly. She was almost there.

* * *

Starscream smiled to himself as the creature's heat signature started moving again, along with the tracking device still sitting in her cell phone. Oh yes, he had her. As she drew nearer he hastily rearranged his expression into something more appropriate: something less of a sneer, less sadistic, a little more noble, "honestly" happy.

Really the whole thing made him want to laugh. He'd have to make sure he was there when she realized just how badly she'd been taken in, if at all possible. It was going to be hilarious.

"Hello," he heard her say, voice timid again. Inwardly, he scowled: was he going to have to coax and prod her out of her figurative shell, to use the idiom, _every_ time they communicated? That would also indicate a lack of actual trust, something that could cause later problems...

He would worry about that latter. It was too soon for it to be a real worry, anyways. "Hope. Hello—thank you for coming."

She smiled shyly at that, blushing a little. "No, no, you don't need to thank me! I'm happy to come. –You must be lonely, with no one to talk to."

Starscream was lucky his grin had frozen in place. He wanted to shoot her, _obliterate_ her, wipe her off of the face of the planet— How dare she. How _dare_ she! To presume—

No. He needed to do this. "I can still appreciate the time and effort, right?" If he had a sweeter voice he could have charmed the fish out of the sea. Sadly, he _still_ wasn't able to override the protocol that kept his 'human' voice a reflection of his true tones. "So, I still should be thanking you—" He paused, then bit the figurative bullet. "—and yes, it's nice to have some company."

"Good," she said, smiling again. "I wouldn't want to be a bother."

"Don't worry about it."

There was a brief moment of silence.

"How was your week?" Starscream asked at last. He'd learned long ago that the best way to get what you wanted was to get someone talking and then sit back and listen. Even if you didn't end up hearing something useful—and you did, remarkably often; most mechs had trouble keeping their secrets secret when they'd been talking long enough—at the end of it all whoever you were listening to was far more predisposed to like the listener.

Apparently, the rule held true for juvenile human females, as well. Especially ones that were starving for attention. Things couldn't have gone better for him if he'd planned.

All he needed to do was be supportive, especially once she'd opened up and shared her secrets. Once he got to that point, she'd consider him a friend—possibly, her best friend. After all, he was acting exactly the way she wanted him to—even when she didn't know it. That was the benefit of having watched her: it made winning the girl's trust that much easier.

* * *

"Are there a lot of you?" Hope asked. Starscream correctly interpreted the question to mean a lot of Decepticons—although she probably didn't differentiate between them and the Autobots.

"Maybe five hundred," he said. "Scattered across the galaxy," he hastened to add, because he didn't want her to try looking up more of them on Earth—she might even find them, which would be a disaster, no matter which faction she ended up making contact with—and there was still the chance, possibly a good chance, that she would be disturbed by an unknown number of Transformers hiding in plain sight on her home planet, in a way that she wasn't disturbed by his known presence.

At least, she thought she knew him, at least a little. Starscream looked forward to correcting that little fallacy. He really _really_ did want the chance to see her expression, when she found out—

"Do you have any...friends?"

Would it be too heavy-handed to claim she was a friend of his? Maybe. In the meantime, he could reinvent a few of the more-tolerable Decepticons into _'friends.'_ "...A few. I haven't heard from them in—quite some time. There's Thundercracker..." Who else had he even moderately tolerated? "—Skywarp. Hook and Scrapper—they worked together."

Hope jumped in, half-interrupting. "Really? What did they do?"

"They were architects, very talented ones." Albeit ones that had a tendency to work live Autobots into their design plans. At least, they were alive when the buildings were first constructed... "They were fairly famous on Cybertron before the war." He also didn't actually like them that much, even though they were more tolerable than, say, Bonecrusher—Hook was a compulsive and uppity micro-manager who didn't know when to shut down his fool vocalizer, and Scrapper was slightly creepy, like his decent personality was just some sort of mask, more than to the extent that was normal. And that wasn't _entirely_ explained by the living-bodies-as-raw-materials thing...

"What did _you_ do?"

Slag but the little organic could jump around with her irritating questions. —And it was probably better if he just didn't bring up his involvement in the war. "I was in training to be a scientist, before the war broke out. I had to stop, eventually... Although I did graduate from the Academy."

"Oh! I'm sorry..."

"It's not your fault." He tried to make his voice gentle, understanding, sympathetic. He almost definitely failed, but at least he didn't sound too sneering, dismissive.

There was a brief pause, which rankled Starscream's nerves even more. Finally, Hope spoke up again. "...What kind of science were you studying?"

A perfect opportunity. "Ah. We don't specialize quite the way you humans do, but I was concentrating on exploration, especially in the cataloging of alien species—such as yourself."

"Really? That sounds so cool! I—this planet must be really boring for you in comparison to that!"

"To the contrary," Starscream interjected coolly.

"But oh—wow, that sounds incredible. Did you travel to other planets?"

"A little, back then. I've done more since, but that's not research expeditions. I have seen some truly spectacular worlds..." Usually, he saw them burning as his army obliterated their pitiful defenses, entire planets fallen at his feet.

After all, the Decepticons had needed the resources, to continue their fight.

"That sounds so so cool!"

Her vocabulary was spectacularly uninspired. Not that their pitiful human language was going to ever be anything worth listening to...

* * *

The human—the girl—Hope seemed to be holding something back. It was probably nothing—or, if he was lucky, it was a hint that she was about to bring up something important (to _her_) with him, or at least thinking about it—but there was always the chance that she was beginning to doubt him. He doubted that, but you never knew—and it could ruin everything. A report to the local authorities would almost definitely go overlooked, but there was always the chance that someone would make the connection, and then—well, it wouldn't necessarily be disastrous, but it would definitely impede his plans.

Their conversation had faded into silence. Starscream let it be for a few moments, then, as gently as he could, brought it up.

"Hope? Is there something bothering you?"

She smiled, the expression slightly pained, slightly strained. _Amateur_. She couldn't even fake a smile! "No, not—nothing much. It'll be fine."

"Would it help to talk about it?"

"...Not really." Damn it: she was being _recalcitrant_. Why had she picked _now_, of all times? Maybe it really was that she was beginning to suspect him... But no, then it wouldn't make much sense that she'd hinted that something was wrong at all. Then again, it wasn't like she was a member of a logical species...

"Would it help you feel a little better if you did?" He struggled to keep his voice quiet, soft.

Finally, success. She half-turned, smiling up at him, a real smile, although one that was slightly bittersweet.

"Yes...I think it would." She paused, drew in breath. Starscream forced himself to remain outwardly calm, unconcerned. "I...haven't told you much, but my parents are separated now." The Decepticon reminded himself that _no_, he _wasn't_ supposed to know much about that, yet. "...And it could be worse. I'm trying not to complain too much, or whine, because it could be a _lot_ worse and, I mean, it's probably better that they—my mom and dad—aren't living with each other now, because they weren't happy, and...at least I still have them, right? And they still love me."

She needed to get to the point. Starscream's patience had definite limits. It was, in fact, something he was _known_ for, among his troops. His temper was even more likely to flare than Megatron's was—although he was less violent when he did finally snap, his troops said. Starscream viewed it as a simple tactical maneuver: if you killed your own team, there were less of them to fight the Autobots. And even just injuries, if they were severe enough, could be a death sentence, considering the quality of the average Decepticon medic...

"But it's...it's hard." Starscream perked up as his sensors caught the tang of salt and a handful of unusual biomolecules. She was crying. _Excellent_. That meant he could be _'there for her.'_ There wouldn't be any question of whether or not she trusted him, after this. "I...

"It's worse for my little sister. Faith. She keeps on having these hysterical fights with my mom. And my dad! He's...damn it, I guess he's trying. But it...

"He keeps on trying_ too hard_ and I don't need him acting like nothing ever happened, because it _is_ different! And he plans these stupid things for us to do, but there's never time for anything else—so, like, he'll take us to the zoo even though I'm an _adult_ but then there won't be any time to visit his apartment and talk and have dinner later on, and he asks questions about my day but it feels like he's doing it just because he thinks _I_ need it, and that just—it _hurts._" Hope curled forward over her knees, and her shoulders heaved. She was crying hard, but almost silently, the only real sound her harsh breathing.

Starscream knelt, moving closer to her.

"—And it just all _sucks_. God, I hate it! And I don't know what the _hell_ I'm going to do about college. There's just...I didn't get the financial aid package I need. I don't know what I'm going to do with that..." She sniffled, rubbing hard at her eyes. "None of my friends want to talk about the divorce. They keep on just...avoiding it. Like it didn't happen. It sucks. And if I bring it up, they all get nervous and quiet and crack these _jokes_ like it'll all make it better until they can change the subject. I _hate it._ And—

"And _damn it_ but my ex-boyfriend seems really happy with his new girlfriend and this one freshman keeps on showing up at my work and staring at my breasts and there aren't _any_ boys in the entire grade who seem to even know I exist, except for one of my friends' friends who's gay, and it's just—I _know_ it sounds stupid and petty, but I just feel ugly and useless and like I don't have any real friends! ...I'm sorry I just dumped all this on you. I know you probably don't care...you've got more important things to worry about, I'll shut up and—and go home or something..."

Much as that sounded like a good idea to Starscream, he couldn't let an opportunity like this get away from him. Ignoring his repulsion, he gently laid a hand over her shoulders, comforting her. "No," he said. "I'm glad you trusted me enough to talk to me." Which was actually true. "It sounds hard...I'm sorry. You're not ugly, and you're one of the nicest people I know." The latter of part of the statement was true even if you included Decepticons, meaning there was competition, because Starscream did not _know_ anyone else. Not that he meant it as a compliment, though: _nice_ was not considered a positive personality trait in a Decepticon. "You deserve some happiness. And I'm sure your education will work out. You're very smart, and clearly very determined and motivated."

Hope smiled at him, awkwardly twisting under his caged fingers so she could see him. "Thank you," she said, wiping at a stray tear.

She was even uglier than she usually was, with her face blotched and wet, eyes swollen and nose running.

* * *

It was dark, and Hope had left. But Starscream had stayed in the meadow, thinking.

He could still feel her body under his hand. And the revulsion was still there, but it had also been—

It had been strange, in a way he couldn't quite describe.

They _were_ surprisingly complex organisms. Not in a good way—far from it, it was a ludicrously awful design—but it was true. There had been a lot of data to take in, analyze, absorb. Temperature, movement, oxygen and carbon dioxide levels, chemicals and more—yes, a lot of different factors.

He'd been able to feel her heartbeat. And her breathing. There was just as much movement within a Cybertronian, but it was largely isolated from the outside—you couldn't feel energon pumping through armor; it didn't move with any internal system.

It was...different. Alien.

* * *

He didn't think he'd ever felt things as strongly as Hope did. Or about such _little_ things like that. He hoped not.

Hope didn't have a _goal_. There was nothing tangible she was fighting for. _Starscream_ had certainly always had something to overcome, to gain—power, usually. For a long time it had been Megatron, but Megatron was dead, wasn't he? And Starscream wasn't.

_Had_ he ever thrown himself into his life like that? He couldn't imagine it. To start with, he was a Decepticon, the peak of creation, the ideal combination of intelligence and pure brute strength, armed with incredibly destructive weaponry and gifted with the ability to hide when it wasn't time to fight.

She was a weak, overemotional human. Of _course_ Starscream had never been like that.

--End chapter 1--

(1) Tolo: a regional (western Washington, not sure where else, if anywhere) term for a girl's choice dance. A more common term is a Sadie Hawkins, I think.

* * *

**Author's Notes**: This fic was written for Dayari, for being her fantastic self. This is part 1 of the first section, entitled _Leaning Away_; there's another three sections, all of which will be posted in this fic, under the general title _Different Directions_. It is an eventual romance, although it will be over a hundred pages before that starts to show up--the main focus for the first two or three sections is friendship.

This fic is not and will not be canon-compliant with _Revenge of the Fallen_--it was conceived and started in September 2008, and as of now is 101 pages/42,500 words long, which covers the first two sections and part of the third.

I have done my best to keep this fic in-character for Starscream. I have also tried to create a _human_ character in Hope: not perfect, but flawed, and still sympathetic despite that.

Things should pick up in the next chapter! Thank you for reading!


	2. Leaning Away 2

**Leaning Away**  
Part 2

Written by Dreaming of Everything for Dayari, betaed by mmouse15!

* * *

Hope was smiling and humming happily even before she saw Starscream, so he prepared himself mentally to fake honest surprise for some stupid little ineffectual unimportant 'success.'

"Starscream!" she called out as she saw him.

"Hope," he said in return, nodding his head in greeting. He refused to do anything like _wave_ to the girl. Touching her whenever it was truly unavoidable was bad enough. He _would not_ lower himself to that level.

"Guess what?" She didn't even pause to let him try and answer, irking him even more—although maybe it was for the best. It gave him less opportunity for sarcastic retorts which, he reminded himself, would not be in character. "I talked to my great-aunt, and she's got a house she's letting me use in Maine! So I can live there and work until I get residency, and then I'll be able to afford the college I want! I'm so happy!"

"Congratulations!" he managed, trying to keep the sneering condescension out of his voice. As always, his _voice_ didn't help. He'd tried again, fruitlessly, to override the voice-programming built into his system the night before. Like always, he hadn't gotten anywhere, but he'd let it go. After all, it wasn't like he could suddenly change his voice patterns without alerting the human. Although he could just enact a few subtle alterations, slip it in for essential moments when he needed to come across as caring, supporting, sympathetic—it would mean he wouldn't need to struggle so hard with his tone. It would give him a bit of leeway.

"Thank you! Oh my God, I'm so happy—I can't believe it's all working out!" She laughed, apparently just with sheer joy and disbelief. Such an absurd display was almost sickening.

Hope paused momentarily before she started speaking again, smiling shyly up at him. "Starscream? Thank you for your support."

"You're welcome," he said, graciously. "It was nothing—you deserve it."

* * *

A little less than a week later, Hope didn't notice the huge black truck that followed her to the trail head parking lot. She was on her way to meet Starscream, and still nervous and excited and unbelieving, although less so all the time.

It wasn't her fault that she didn't realize. Ironhide had stayed out of sight, which was very easy for him. After all, her truck had been outfitted with a tracking signal, and he already knew where she was going; staying a few cars behind, or driving slowly so that she was always a turn ahead of him was no problem at all.

She didn't even know that she was being tracked.

As usual, Hope didn't pass anyone on her hike up. It was a pretty remote trail, and it was an overcast Monday morning. She didn't notice anyone following her, either, because nobody really was.

She was happy to come out into the field. She looked forward to seeing Starscream. He made her feel more confident, happier; he made her feel like she was a better person. He just—he was supportive, and he listened, and he talked back to her, like her opinion _really mattered,_ and he just—he wasn't _involved_. He only knew her. No nerves, no history, no _nothing_. He—he listened. And he believed _her_.

...There he was! He looked—too-serious, this morning. There was some glint in his eye that put her on edge. He looked almost predatory. Although that was probably just the way he was built. He looked almost like a bird of prey, the way his legs were, and he was kind of—spiky, really.

"Hope," he said. "Hello. How are you?"

"Oh, hello, Starscream! I'm—pretty good, I guess! Getting better all the time, I'm starting to get ready to leave for Maine, I'm really excited—how are you?"

"Glad this is ending," he said, breaking into a full grin, a shark-like expression that was almost a smirk, and then he was leaning down, and grabbing her, and pulling her up, holding her up in the air and squeezing almost too tight.

* * *

The Autobots had found him. That was a pity—he hadn't wanted to reveal his presence back on Earth so soon—but those things happened. He'd have to find out how they'd figured it out—later, though.

He had _other_ things to concentrate on, at the moment. Even beyond the absolutely delicious expression of sheer terror contorting Hope's face. The wait always made these things better—and it was a _personal_ revenge, best of all, for all the hours of irritation she'd caused him—_listening_ to her, to her _damn_ petty 'problems,' her stupid, insipid little life—_everything._

It was funny. She'd thought she'd _known him_.

But he knew that the Autobots would be arriving. Doubtless they'd laid plans for any attempt to leave by air. Nothing he couldn't avoid—he was the best flier in the Decepticon army, and even an _average_ Decepticon jet wasn't going to be outmatched by Autobots, flighted or not, let alone humans—but he had a much safer bet as to how to get out.

He had a hostage.

Hope was going to see her usefulness out to the end. She'd provided some useful data, and now she was going to provide him with a clean getaway.

Bleeding-heart Autobots—it was so _easy_ to manipulate them. It was hardly any more sporting that playing with Hope had been.

Not that Starscream cared about that.

* * *

Hope had almost passed out with sheer fear when the other set of robots had shown up.

That had to be the other side, in the war Starscream had told her a little about.

...She didn't trust him anymore, but she didn't trust _them_ either. Was she going to die no matter who won? Probably, she thought.

She was so, so scared.

They were bargaining over her, she thought. Or bargaining over _something_. Why hadn't they attacked? Both sides had weapons, all clearly visible—she hadn't realized they could make themselves, or parts of themselves, into weapons the way they could turn into planes, or cars, she guessed, since some of them had wheels, and it was a lot less cool, it was kind of horrifying, in fact, because they were _weapons _and now that she knew that—but they hadn't started shooting, or any other sort of fighting. They were just sort of standing there.

She was having trouble following the conversation, even though she thought it was mostly in English. Or at least partly in English. Starscream's voice sounded—triumphant. Was that really his name? Clearly, he'd lied about _some_ things. Had he lied about everything? Right now, she'd believe it.

She just didn't understand _why_. And how...

Hope was moving again. Being moved. She screamed, but the wind rushing past her caught the words and she fell, roughly, dropped the last few feet, to the ground; she lay there, panting, and waiting for death.

It didn't come. Instead, there were the sounds of Starscream taking flight, transformation, and a soldier came to help her up, while the sounds of a battle started up above her.

* * *

Patience Lans wasn't expecting to find her daughter, pale and horrified-looking, bruised and scratched up, and covered in mud, twigs and leaves in her hair and clothes, when she opened the door. She hadn't expected to find a soldier with her, a clean-cut, responsible looking young man.

She gasped, and dropped the mug of coffee that had been in her hand. "What _happened?"_

"Nothing to worry about, ma'am," said the soldier, voice crisp and professional. "We think your daughter fell and hit her head—she's got a little amnesia, the basic signs of a concussion. We found her when she wandered into a practice drill, and we wanted to make sure she was okay. She's a little dazed, and confused. If she says anything that doesn't make much sense, don't worry too much about it. And if you have any questions, here's my business card."

"Thank you," said Patience, stunned, automatically reaching out to take the proffered card. "Would you like a cup of coffee or tea?"

"No, thank you," he said—Captain Lennox, the card read, but she didn't know if it was his or someone else's—smiling at her. "I'm looking forward to going home. Thank you, though. I hope your daughter's fine."

"Thank you," said Patience, running on autopilot, and she reached out to her daughter, pulling her close. The soldier left, and Hope started crying into her shoulder. Patience worked her inside, slowly and gently.

"You are _never_ going camping alone again," she said, simply, after she'd gotten Hope a bowl of soup, the two of them sitting at the kitchen table.

"Okay," said Hope, shivering again, and suddenly _Patience_ felt like crying. She wasn't ready for this—she couldn't _handle_ this. But she needed to. She needed to be strong, for Hope. And for Faith, her baby girl. She needed to be strong for _herself._

"I'm sorry, sweetheart," she said again, wrapping her daughter up in another hug, breathing in the smell of her. She couldn't imagine losing her daughter, and she'd come far, far too close to it, twice now.

"It's not your fault, Mom."

"I should never have let you go out on your own. Not the first time, and _especially_ not after you fell—"

"You can't protect me forever." Were there—odd overtones to that statement? Maybe. It was probably just shock.

"But I want to try."

* * *

"Hey, Hope."

"Hay is for horses, Faith."

"Whatever, jerk. Did you really get a concussion and end up walking into a bunch of soldiers and then one of them brought you home? Or did Mom finally have her breakdown?"

"Yeah."

"...Were they hot?"

"_What?_ What is _wrong_ with you—"

"_You're_ the freak. Did you get any phone numbers?"

"No! I had a _concussion!_"

"Laaame."

"Geeze, give the hormones a break. You're ridiculous."

"I'm going to laugh when you die a virgin. At age ninety-five."

"Oh, shut up."

"_Make_ me."

"I can't move. Everything hurts too much."

"Does that mean I can get into your closet and take—excuse me, _borrow,_ anything I want and you can't do anything about it?"

"No, it does not—hey! _Hey!_ Don't you even dare—no! That's my favorite shirt, get out of my clothes! —Mom! Hey, _Mom!_ Come here, make Faith stop taking my clothes!"

"Really, Hope. Hay is for horses. And you shouldn't yell at our dear mother like that."

"You little _snot._"

* * *

It was Sunday, and Hope had decided not to get up. Instead, she was eating leftover Girl Scout cookies in bed, and rereading The Lord of the Rings. She'd been working hard, and she didn't want to face the outside world. Her day off, and she was going to spend it doing absolutely nothing productive.

A knock at the door made her start guiltily. She hastily swallowed her mouthful of cookie and shoved the box under her pillow. "Come in!"

"Hey, Hope," her mother said gently, leaning in the doorway for a second before she walked in, sitting on the edge of the bed. Hope pulled up her feet to make room for her, sitting up, and hoping that the crinkling sound of the cookie wrappers wasn't as loud as it sounded to her.

"Hi, Mom. What is it?"

"I'm—I'm just a little worried about you. I know this has been a hard year. I feel like I should have encouraged you more to go off to school..."

"Mom, don't feel so guilty! It was my own decision, and I'm happy with it. And since I talked Aunt Prudence, and she said I can stay in her vacation home for a while, I can get residency, and that's _fantastic_. So it's good I waited, right?"

"I'm just a little worried, sweetheart. You're my baby, and you've seemed so _depressed_ these past few weeks. Are you sure you're fine?"

"Yes, Mom. I know I can talk to you if you need it, but I'm fine now. Things are a—a little hard, but I'll live. It'll all be fine."

"Okay. If you say so. You know I love you, right?"

"Of course, Mom. I love you too."

* * *

"You're _late,_ Hope."

"I know, Mr. Olson. I'm sorry, it won't happen again."

"It better not. If you go missing again, or whatever—I've got other people to give this job to."

"I'm really sorry, but I didn't _try_ to get hurt out in the woods, I swear, you can call my mom—"

"Does she have a signed note for you, too? You're not in kindergarten anymore. Get in there and work."

Hope did, her eyes starting to prickle with tears. Nothing to do but ignore it, and hope she could get into the bathroom soon. She could cry there.

* * *

Hope had never thought that she'd end up missing high school.

* * *

"Hey, Chrissy, it's me!"

"_Oh—Hey, Hope. How are you?"_

"Okay—I'm still kind of getting over the break-up with you-know-who, but it's getting better. One of the guys I work with is cute. Hey, I was thinking—want to get together this weekend? There's the horror movie marathon on TV, and we've made a point of doing it the past few years..."

"_Is that _this_ weekend? Oh, damn—I'm so sorry, Hope, I already made plans! I'm getting together with a bunch of the girls in my dorm, and we're going to go out to this party—I'm sorry, and it's all people you don't know, so I couldn't invite them—it's a university thing, right?"_

"Oh... Okay, then. Maybe some other time. There's always next year, right?"

"_Right. We'll have to get together soon!"_

"Yeah."

"_Great! Bye, Hope, I hope we can see each other soon!"_

* * *

Hope tried not to flinch too obviously when she heard a plane. She didn't want to worry her parents, and there was no good reason to explain her sudden fear. At least, no reason that didn't involve telling the truth. And that was the last thing she wanted to do, most of the time.

She did fairly well, she thought. But her mom looked at her oddly, sometimes. And then, it was all Hope could do to keep from telling her everything.

_I had a friend. He was a robot. But he turned out not to be... No, he was still a robot. He could turn into a plane. But he was never my friend. I really, really hate him. I hope I never see him again._

* * *

"_Oh no! The movie marathon's _this_ week? I don't know what Chrissy was thinking, inviting me to that thing of hers—"_

"You're going too?"

"_Well, I was... Tell you what, I'll call her and tell her, and then she can reschedule it later. Are you going?"_

"Lisa... Chrissy isn't inviting me. I just called her about it, and she's not going to be there. It's okay, we can do it the next year—"

"_No! It's a tradition, you can't mess around with that stuff. _I'll_ still come. Even if you're not there!"_

"No, don't worry, I'll be there. Thanks, Lisa."

"_Don't worry about it! I wouldn't miss this for the _world_. Mind if I bring a friend? Since it looks like Chrissy's crapped out on us."_

"No problem."

"_Good. So, I guess I'll see you Friday—"_

"Yeah."

"_Oh, and Hope?"_

"Uh-huh?"

"_Don't worry about Chrissy. She's a bitch."_

Hope couldn't quite bite back her (slightly guilty) giggle—it made her feel better, but at the same time, Chrissy was still her friend. Or had been. "Okay. I'll do my best. See you Friday—I can't wait to meet your friend!"

* * *

"What are you doing?"

"Studying," Hope said, the reply automatic. "Go away, Faith."

"Studying? _Ew._" Faith wrinkled her noise, face expressive. "Why'd you do _that_ when you don't have to?"

"Because I think it's important stuff to know."

"_Nothing_ is worth that."

"To you, maybe. But I want to know where all the different countries are. I mean, it's important stuff."

"Whatever, crazy."

* * *

The human's life was still incredibly boring to watch—although he had fewer means of collecting data, now, which was a disappointment. And it wasn't worth it to try getting into her cellphone again. It would just revive suspicions about Starscream's continued presence. No, he was stuck gathering bits and pieces of information wherever and whenever he could. It was frustrating, especially since what he gathered was so often of so little use.

Home. Work. Friends. School—even though she wasn't currently enrolled in an institution. All petty, inconsequential annoyances. The carbon-creature's life seemed to revolve around the pointless.

On the other hand, she demonstrated a remarkable ability to recover, and to cope—comparatively speaking. She was still _vastly_ inferior, an _organism_. Nothing was going to change _that._

He wondered if it was typical of the species, or fairly unique, or a freak coincidence, even. That was worth a little further study. It had the potential to affect future plans; it was something he could monopolize on, or something that could undermine a plan, if not taken into consideration. Important things. And for such an unimportant species... He knew more about the physiology of the carbon constructs, the autotrophic ones, than he did about the human systems.

Starscream had priorities, after all.

* * *

Hope had been looking for a new park to go to, some place away from the hustle of the city and her family, someplace she could get away from everything. She'd found a small lake, and it had looked perfect.

It was. The lake, and it was just hot enough—an unseasonable day—that she'd been able to dabble her feet in the water. There were some nice trees, and some picnic tables. It was out of the way, isolated and remote but not _eerily_ so, and there was no one there on a school day in September. Just what Hope had wanted.

She lay back in the grass, staring at the dazzlingly blue sky until she let her eyes drift closed, breathing in the clean air and letting the scent and sound and feel of it all surround her.

Hope screamed, involuntarily, when there was the sudden roar of a jet approaching, far too fast. She forced herself to calm—she knew the military was around, maybe they were just practicing?—but her nightmares just ended up coming true.

Starscream. And she couldn't pretend it wasn't him when he landed, transforming to touch down with a spectacular splash into the shallow pond. Waves of sun-warmed water, discolored with algae, went splashing up onto the banks.

Hope didn't even realize she was drenched. She'd moved with alacrity, but she knew better than to really try to run. Her back was pressed up against a tree, and she quivered with suppressed fear and emotion.

Silence.

There was a displaced fish, gasping and flopping for air on the banks. Hope wanted to run up and push it back into the lake, but she didn't dare. Not when it meant moving _towards_ Starscream.

What was he doing here?

It couldn't be for her.

It couldn't be good, and it couldn't be for her. He had to have some reason for this—was he just trying to get rid of his loose ends? By killing them.

She had to try to call someone. She had her cellphone with her. Did she dare...?

It wasn't like she was going to live. Might as well die a hero...

Eyes still fixed on Starscream, she reached on hand into her pocket, pulled out her cellphone. She fumbled with the buttons, dialing from memory: the number the soldier had given her, to call if something went wrong, _badly_ wrong. She guessed this counted. She couldn't think of anything much worse.

The call didn't go through, even though it said she had reception. It didn't work the second time. Nine-one-one didn't work either.

Starscream smirked at her. "I'm blocking cellphone reception in the area," he said, voice apparently casual but with a heavy satisfied note to it. He was enjoying this. "You have no way of getting in contact with anyone." There was a pause. "It's the only reason you're not dead right now."

Hope started crying, perfectly quiet except for her harsh, gasping breaths. The silent sobs shook her body. At first she tried to stay standing, but she fell to her knees, and then curled in on herself, crying into the dry dust she was kneeling in. It had been a hot dry start to the fall, and her tears left wet spots on the earth, where the ground hadn't already been soaked by pondwater.

She didn't stop, just clutched herself tighter. After a while, she was almost ignoring the Decepticon still towering above her.

The sounds were starting to grate on Starscream's nerves. He scowled, shifted slightly, but the human's concentration didn't turn back to him. No, that wasn't quite it—she was still more than aware of his presence, but she wasn't paying _strict_ attention.

"Stop," he demanded, at last. He was tired of listening to her. It was time for the conversation to proceed.

Hope stilled suddenly, her breath stopping with on last gasping lungful of air, and she looked up, shaking, dumb acceptance in her numb eyes.

It changed into something else. She—crumbled. Fell apart.

The noise of her cries echoed off of the trees, off of his own self, off of the hill behind her, rebounding and echoing, rising up.

Somewhere in there, in-between the sobbing and crying, was a plea: Please, God, just _go_, just leave me alone, I hate you, I _hate—_fuck, just, please. _Leave, _go away!

His demands had just made things worse. He wanted—he _needed_ her to stop the infernal racket, to just _stop crying—_

"_Silence,"_ he said again, kneeling and reaching towards her, a hand moving out reflexively—although it wasn't a reflex, or not one he was supposed to have. Transformers didn't touch, and Decepticons didn't comfort—but there was no time to think about that.

"_Get away from me!"_ The words were screamed, and he could hear the strain in her voice, the words too loud and too high-pitched and for a second she almost sounded something like him.

The human was moving, pushing away from him, violently, scrabbling in the dirt, trying to get away. There was the expected satisfaction, but not enough of it. Hardly any at all. Revenge...

She was pathetic.

Starscream reached out again. Hope flinched, repulsed, as he touched her, fingertips tapping into her, nothing to him but enough to push her onto her side. She lay where she fell. The fight had gone out of her.

He withdrew.

A while later, she started crying again. She didn't stop for a long, long time.

After an hour, Starscream left.

--End chapter 2--

_(Thank you very much, all my reviewers! SpartanSith, I'll thank you here specifically since I can't reply to your review; thank you to my anons as well, Ever Free, Erin and D.J.A! D.J.A, I'd like to thank you in particular—that is an incredible compliment.)_


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